Here we go again. On CNN, a caller by the name of Alberto told HLN money expert Clark Howard that he was charged $62,000 to download the movie WALL-E for his nephew while vacationing in Mexico, according to Ars Technica. As is probably obvious to everyone by now, the caller forgot to activate a data roaming plan on his cellular data card before leaving for the trip.
Of course, the carrier would never think to alert the customer of such a thing beforehand–and any text alerts about extra charges get lost in the ether when you’re using a data card. After some haggling on the phone, the carrier “reduced the bill to $17,000, arguing that the five-figure charge was what it cost them to deliver the movie”–which is baloney, given the existence of said international data roaming plans.
It’s tempting to blame the customer, and granted, he should have checked into this. But at the same time, I run into well-meaning folks all the time who forget to update their virus definitions on their PCs, or even install a security suite in the first place. A beginner’s mistake, but no worse or better than not knowing about how to reconfigure a data plan. A $17,000 bill isn’t fair, period.
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